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We've improved Slashdot's video section; now you can view our video interviews, product close-ups and site visits with all the usual Slashdot options to comment, share, etc. No more walled garden! It's a work in progress -- we hope you'll check it out (Learn more about the recent updates).

Hugh Pickens writes "Research analyzing DNA sequences from Native American, New World and Asian populations shows a gradual migration and expansion of people from Asia through Siberia and into Beringia, a once-habitable region that today lies submerged under the icy waters of the Bering Strait, starting about 40,000 years ago; a long waiting period in Beringia where the population size remained relatively stable; and finally a rapid expansion into North America through Alaska or Canada about 15,000 years ago. "If you think about it, these people didn't know they were going to a new world. They were moving out of Asia and finally reached a landmass that was exposed because of lower sea levels during the last glacial maximum, but two major glaciers blocked their progress into the New World. So they basically stayed put for about 20,000 years, says Connie Mulligan, Ph.D. "It wasn't paradise, but they survived. When the North American ice sheets started to melt and a passage into the New World opened, we think they left Beringia to go to a better place." Researchers believe that their synthesis of a large number of different approaches into a unified theory will create a platform for scientists to further analyze genomic and non-genetic data as they become available. The original paper is published open-access on PLOS."

SurturZ (54334) writes "I think you should have a poll
"Best Slashdot Poll?"
* What would you like the CIA to declassify?
* Best Meme in Slashdot's First 10 Years
* Favorite Sci-Fi Ship?
* Favourite Poll involving CowboyNeal?
etc etc
I'm sure you could do a database search to work out the top five most voted for polls to put in the list"

eldavojohn writes "Hundreds of black holes that were thought to exist at the beginning of the universe have been found by NASA's Spitzer and Chandra space telescopes. From the article, 'The findings are also the first direct evidence that most, if not all, massive galaxies in the distant universe spent their youths building monstrous black holes at their cores. For decades, a large population of active black holes has been considered missing. These highly energetic structures belong to a class of black holes called quasars. A quasar consists of a doughnut-shaped cloud of gas and dust that surrounds and feeds a budding supermassive black hole. As the gas and dust are devoured by the black hole, they heat up and shoot out X-rays. Those X-rays can be detected as a general glow in space, but often the quasars themselves can't be seen directly because dust and gas blocks them from our view.' This is pretty big, as it's empirical evidence proving the existence of objects that theoretically had to exist but could not be detected previously."Link to Original Source

techoon writes "The goal of the Google Linux Client Team is to develop Linux desktop applications, such as the official Linux versions of Google Earth and Google Picasa. This team made an interesting splash during a presentation at the first-ever Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit, which they had kindly hosted at their Mountain View campus. The Google presenters claimed some 'significant accomplishments' and other new Google desktop applications coming out this year for the Linux platform."

NewsCloud alerts us to a story a few months old that has been getting a lot of play recently. A Seattle blogger, Dan Twohig, was browsing in Microsoft's Virtual Earth when he accidentally came across a photo of a nuclear sub in dry-dock. Its propeller is clearly visible — this was a major no-no on the part of someone at the Bangor Sub Base. The designs of such stealth propellers have been secret for decades. Twohig blogged about the find and linked to the Virtual Earth photo on July 2. The debate about security vs. Net-accessible aerial photography has been building ever since. The story was picked up on military.china.com on Aug. 17 — poetic justice for the Chinese sub photo that had embarrassed them a month before. On Aug. 20 the Navy Times published the article that most mainstream media have picked up in their more recent coverage. Twohig's blog is the best source to follow the ongoing debate. No one has asked Microsoft, Google, or anyone else to blur the photo in question. Kind of late now.

CmpEng (1123811) writes "ROME, Italy — Researchers studying Iceman, the 5,000-year-old mummy found frozen in the Italian Alps, have come up with a new theory for how he died, saying he died from head trauma, not by bleeding to death from an arrow.
Just two months ago, researchers in Switzerland published an article in the Journal of Archeological Science saying the mummy — also known as Oetzi — had died after the arrow tore a hole in an artery beneath his left collarbone, leading to massive loss of blood, shock and heart attack."Link to Original Source

DarkrhaveN (206379) writes "My girlfriend asked the other day if I could find her a free MMORPG ala WoW and Everquest. I decided to search a bit more but got caught up in hokey pay sites and other things when it dawned on me to just ask the slashdot community. Where are all the free MMORPGS ?"

moon_monkey (323491) writes "While cutting greenhouse gases might be the best way to halt climate change, it's reassuring to know some scientists are already thinking about ways to combat fend off runaway warming if this doesn't work. NewScientistSpace has an interesting blog post about some pretty crazy-sounding ways for combating climate change. These include pumping sulfur into the atmosphere, sending thousands of tiny mirrors into orbit and even painting all our roads white to reflect the Sun's rays. Could this be the next X-prize?"

http://www.cgisecurity.com writes "I've just posted an interview with the author of the popular open source web application security assessment tool nikto. I spoke with Chris Sullo about the current state of the project, future, and other things on his mind involving the application security space."